Chapter 415: Chapter 257: Cultivation World 47_2
Ziyue suddenly felt relieved.
"Immortal, please rest well."
"Okay." Ziyue nodded.
After a while, Si Lingle arrived.
"Ziyue greets Senior."
"No need for too much courtesy." Si Lingle sat down and inquired, "Did you encounter an Evil Cultivator again?"
Ziyue shook her head and briefly recounted the events.
"Are you willing to join the Hundred Battle Sect?"
"I am willing," Ziyue said, "Senior has saved me once and twice. I am willing to join the sect to repay the favor."
"Very good." After some inquiry, Si Lingle took out a Heavenly Level Technique for Ziyue, "This is a Heavenly Level Technique, suitable for your Wind Spirit Root."
"Thank you, Sect Leader."
"Cultivate well."
"Yes."
Si Lingle was very pleased, she hadn’t expected to find a disciple with a Single Spirit Root.
It seems she needs to go out for more training and might find more hidden talents.
Si Lingle went out for training again after half a year.
...
As Si Lingle swept past the last Gang Wind barrier, the absurd landscape of the Extreme West Domain suddenly tore through the sky.
The gray-brown ground resembled scorched earth plowed by a giant deity, with piles of rubble forming continuous bone hills, amidst which semi-buried bronze building ruins were scattered — the twisted flying eaves faintly discernible in the outline of ancient altars, yet crawling with dark red rust stains after enduring the erosion of time.
On the distant horizon, dozens of broken gigantic stone pillars stabbed towards the firmament, the ancient totems engraved on the surface of the pillars had been worn by wind and sand into abstract patterns.
Most bizarre was a black river spanning a thousand miles, the water as thick as asphalt.
Here, the thin Spiritual Energy and eerie environment fostered twisted vegetation, like centipede-shaped shrub roots exposed on the surface, with each root thorn secreting acid that corroded sword scabbards.
The normally delicate Moonlight Grass swelled into a three-zhang tall tumor-like plant, with pus intermittently dripping from its flower pistil, emitting hallucinatory smoke.
When Si Lingle’s Protective Sword Qi came into contact with the toxic mist, it emitted a hiss akin to metal quenching.
The gray-purple fog was not ordinary miasma, but "Fierce Fog" — capable of distorting Space Perception, compressing a cultivator’s Divine Sense range to ten zhang.
Even more deadly were the transparent flocculent particles floating in the mist, which, once adhering to a Magic Treasure, would trigger chaotic Spiritual Power; a Golden Core Cultivator’s Lifebound Flying Sword had once exploded into fragments because of this.
In the shadows of the dunes, Double-headed Sand Lizards lay dormant, parasitized by transparent worms called "Soul-devouring Leech" in the gaps of their scales.
This symbiotic entity can separate for attack: the Sand Lizard handles physical biting, while the leech turns into mist to invade the cultivator’s seven orifices, devouring the Shuang Ling of the three souls.
In the surrounding desert, everywhere were the bones of cultivators, with human and Demon Clan alike: a semi-buried Nascent Soul Cultivator corpse, whose skull had been converted into a storage vessel, stuffed with Curse Bamboo Scrolls inscribed by later comers; within the chest cavity of a Demon Clan skeleton, Blood Coral that could yield low-grade spirit stones was growing.
Si Lingle witnessed a team of three Golden Core Cultivators attempting to trap a mutated sand scorpion using the "Four Symbols Spirit Locking Array."
However, the moment the array was activated, hundreds of Soul-devouring Leeches suddenly emerged from the ground, revealing that the sand scorpion was merely bait for luring prey.
In the end, only one armless cultivator escaped, with sand lizard scales already growing at his wound.
The sky of the Extreme West Domain always presented a morbid dark golden hue, with shadows of gigantic chains occasionally flashing in the clouds —the remnants of the Kunlun Restriction that suppressed the Demon King.
During every full moon, black mucus seeps from the ground, coagulating into faceless humanoid creatures that chant ancient dirges, causing even the fiercest demon beasts to tremble as they lower themselves onto the ground.
This land abandoned by the Heavenly Dao is both a graveyard for cultivators and a testing ground for breaking the shackles of realm advancement.
Si Lingle came to a mobile black market formed by three bone pyramids.
The three bone pyramids hovered in a pin-word shape above the sand sea, tens of thousands of demon beast skulls bonded by transparent crystalline substances form the base, with ribs and spines interwoven into spiral staircases.
Every level of the steps is embedded with living demon beast eyeballs, their pupils change color with the sun and moon’s light: amber by day to watch over visitors, transforming into a ghostly blue lantern at night to guide paths.
At the pinnacle of the pyramid floats three gigantic Dragon Whale hearts, pulsing with a thunderous roar, spraying blood mist containing hallucinogenic spores across a radius of ten li.
At the entrance, Si Lingle purchased a Token and entered the black market.
There are many things for sale in this black market.
In the northeastern corner, the vendor hawks "Human-faced Owls," these creatures with little girl faces but can spit out the Divine Souls of Nascent Soul Cultivators. Locked within rune-covered bronze cages, they chorus the Soul Crossing Scripture whenever the moonlight shifts, causing buyers’ Divine Senses to tremble.
